Dakala softly walks into Dragon's room with red eyes, and whisper calls, "Dragon, are you there?"
The screen on the front of Dragon's chassis lights up as Dragon's avatar appears, "Dakala, I didn't expect to see you."
"Dragon, have you ever killed anyone?"
Dragon pauses for several seconds as she parses the question and its relevance. Eventually she says, "It is to my great sorrow that I have, yes. It was one of the drivers behind inventing containment foam. I never want to be in a situation where my only option is to take a life in order to preserve a life."
From the doorway, the Empress says, "Mercy is the preserve of the powerful."
Dakala looks back and spits, "I heard what you said to Mr Hughes."
The Empress nods, "I know, and if it wasn't that fight, it would have been another fight sometime soon. While the clothes you're wearing were common to everyone in the heavens where I came from. Here, they seem to be restricted to Asia. That means that the ABB were likely to pick a fight at some point. Simply by being black, and my student means that the Empire would seek you out. If I moved away from this city to anywhere else in the USA, someone would come to find me. Maybe Heart Breaker, in a misguided attempt to gain a powerful thrall. Maybe the butcher, or the fallen. You have lucked into a path to great power, and it already shows. Yet your power is only going to grow stronger over time. You are not a cape, you're not limited to the power that you've been granted. You are a cultivator, and you're already half way to foundation establishment. I chose to push you into situations where you were likely to need to fight for your life because you need to know that you can kill, and just how easy it is. Especially because when you reach foundation establishment, your qi will undergo an increase in quality."
Dragon shakes her head, "There are other ways to teach that, you didn't need to do it like that."
The Empress waves behind her, "The Mortal room of my library is open to you on the 1st floor. I have shelves of jade slips full of my early mistakes and lessons. I've been rereading them since it was drawn to my attention that they contain information about things I never wanted to forget. The first time I was ever in a fight for my life, I was already a flying immortal. I won, but I also wiped out a small village because I was careless with one of my attacks. Trust me, it's better to learn the lesson when you can't kill hundreds of people in one mis-aimed attack."
As the Empress turns away, Dakala calls, "Master, are you well?"
The Empress turns back, "I dealt with all my regrets aeons ago. Some of them turned into heart demons that I had to vanquish. My solace in that memory is that I was attacked, and defended myself. That, and the fact that my attacker was no longer alive to attack other cultivators or mortals. After all, there was no mortal prison that could hold a flying immortal. Death is part of life, and we are fortunate enough that we have the power to choose whether to kill or not. I will leave you to your conversation."
As the Empress leaves, Dakala mumbles, "By first floor, she means second floor."
Dragon nods, "Dakala, are you alright?"
Dakala sits down on Dragon's bed, and pulls her knees to her chest, "I couldn't sleep. How did you deal with it?"
"Badly. I clung to the fact I was executing a legal order as I tried to rationalize what I did. The original containment foam was the invention of a villain who used it to rob houses and people. However, it caused chemical burns and was toxic if injested.
"I'm already a shut in for health reasons, but for six months I stopped sending my suits out, and only paid attention to the most urgent of matters. Ultimately, while making containment foam gave me the confidence to explore the outside world again. It was only talking to other heroes about their experiences that really allowed me to get past what I did."
"The Empress took me to see a family that were attacked by those gangers. They were attacked at the same time the Simurgh attacked Australia. How do people do that?"
Dragon sighs, "There's a semi official rule in cape culture called the Endbringer truce. During an Endbringer attack, all cape activity is supposed to come to a halt, and the truce usually holds for 12 hours after the attack finishes."
"Do you think that's one of the asinine rules the Empress was talking about?"
"Unlikely, as truces and peace treaties have been around far longer than capes have. There is a code of conduct that most capes abide by though."
"What's that?"
"No lethal force, or don't try to kill each other. Don't go after civilian identities, including friends and family. Don't attack civilians. Respect truces and meetings. No rape, slavery, or torture. Finally, no guns."
Dakala shakes her head, "I don't get it, why would she think they're stupid?"
Dragon sighs and is silent for a moment before saying, "Probably because they are unwritten, and so there are many capes that don't respect those rules, except when it suits them. About the only rule that gets enforced by everyone is the one about civilian identities. Though, everyone pays lip service to the rules in public. As part of the Guild, I am often sent out around the world to arrest capes who can't be handled the capes who are flouting the law in a way that can't be contained. I guess the Empress is right when she said that Mercy is the preserve of the powerful. I think I have the lowest number of kills out of all active Guild members. Now, do you think you can sleep?"
Dakala looks down at the bed she's sitting on, "Would you mind if I slept in here?"
Dragon smiles, "Go ahead."
As she's lying down to sleep, Dakala asks, "Do you think the Empress will be asked to join the guild?"
"Quite possibly."
"Mmm, they need to write out all the right paperwork then."
"What do you mean?"
"It's in the coin. Sleep with it on your head, and it will teach you everything you need to know to understand the mandate. Including how to request help from the heavens."
As Dakala falls asleep, Dragon turns the last few seconds of conversation into a recording before sending it to Narwhal in an e-mail.
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The next morning, Dakala drags herself to the courtyard for morning practice.
Instead of standing up to greet her, the Empress instead gestures to the floor in front of her. "Sit, there is no practice today, and there will be no more practice until your heart has settled."
Dakala sits where she's bidden and asks, "I don't understand."
"Dakala, you are young and you have never been tested against the world until you were kidnapped. This world is much kinder than the world I came from. Much of the technology you take for granted was never developed simply because almost everyone can cultivate, and will do so until they reach foundation establishment. And with cultivation comes increased strength and speed. Death was common, whether from starvation, disease, beasts, bandits, or war. Entry to the sects was a dream that many parents had for their children, but one only attainable to the rich, talented, or lucky. This is because the sects would only take children who had martial or scholarly training unless they managed to achieve essence gathering on their own. Most cultivators would only manage foundation establishment before they retired from the sect, or became too old for the sect to bother investing in them.
"I'm not telling you this to devalue what you did. I'm telling you this to show how little your life has prepared you to deal with death and violence. I have given you my Dao of life, yet you have not had any epiphanies. This is not a slight against you or your ability, after all it took me months to have my first epiphany. To the north is mostly wild forest and mountains with the occasional light touch of mortals on it. You also have people you can talk to about what happened in Melah and your father. Take a few weeks to explore and meditate and refind your center."
Dakala looks down, "So, you're kicking me out?"
The Empress lifts her chin with a single finger, "No child. You are still welcome here, and once you have found your center, I will continue to teach you. You are also welcome in my library if that's where you seek answers. Or there is the mortal library in the city too. What I'm doing is giving you a break. As spring is coming, the animals are starting to move and you may find some much needed insight if you take the time to practice sensing things with your qi. Keep the money I gave you yesterday, but you must only travel under your own power."
Dejectedly, Dakala stands up and walks to her room, where she pulls the chest containing her clothes into her ring. As she looks around, she sees that her fans and sword have been cleaned, and placed on top of the writing desk.
She stands there for a long time before she finally walks forward and places them into her ring. As she does, out of the corner of her eye, she could swear she saw the Empress smiling at her with approval before disappearing.
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Dakala spends a couple of days in the Empress' library, or on the phone to her father, trying to find things on how other people from her home dealt with killing. In the end, it seems to be 'thank the ancestors that it wasn't you that died, then get on with your life'. The only account that seems remotely sympathetic she found by accident in jade slip for her Dao.
According to the Empress, the cultivator caught her and Qigang on one of the excursions to a village to trade foraged cultivation resources for supplies. Qigang and the Empress were on a sword when the cultivator caught them. The Empress was given the choice to give up the resources and Qigang, or die and they'd take them anyway.
At the end of the fight, the Village was devastated, and the people they'd got to know were dead. They stayed around to help with the funerary rites as the people from the surrounding farms came to investigate. Then it starts talking about how she felt the souls dissipating, and releasing qi into the world, without their bodies to anchor them to this world.
With a heavy heart, she leaves the pagoda and heads to the northern edge of the courtyard. Just before she steps off the edge, the Empress appears next to her holding a large leather pouch with a stopper in the top, and a silk napkin that's folded in to a square.
"It's a water skin, so that you don't need to worry about being constantly close to a stream or river. I've put two seeds in the napkin. If your life is ever in danger, I'll be there. But if you just want to talk, or advice, you can call me and I'll send my soul to you… I also wrote this jade slip for you. It contains some useful information on living in the wilds."
Dakala shakes her head as she puts the items in her ring, "I don't understand. I thought that mortal lives meant basically nothing to you."
"One of the sages at the university said something interesting to their class the other week. 'The death of one person is a tragedy. The death of 1,000 is a statistic'. That goes double if you know the person, especially if you care. I never stopped caring. Yes, I could kill a million mortals if it meant a billion survived. But I would sacrifice the world to save the people I care about."
As the Empress walks away, Dakala pulls out the jade slip and stares at it as she whispers, "I thought you were supposed to be an ageless immortal."
The Empress calls back, "Just because I'm immortal, doesn't mean I'm not human."
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What is life? Is it the struggle to survive against an uncaring environment? Is it the quest for immortality through procreation? Is it family and friends? Or is it defined by death?
Zeng Song died last week and his eldest sent me a jade bird so that we could attend his remembrance. Since I escaped from the Purple Bell Sect, he is the first mortal that was my apparent age when I met them. Yet now he's died from old age. Qigang looks like she could be his great-grandchild, despite being his third child. Yet all around me I can see evidence of his legacy, while I still fear the touch of a man. Zeng Xinyi looks like she might have a few years left in her. But still she sits proudly by her husbands shrine as we pay our respects.
Tears pricking at the corner of her eyes, Dakala takes the jade slip the Empress handed to her from her head and looks around the mountain forest surrounding her.
Most of the entries have been about how to use qi to sense the plant and animal life around her, and find plants and animals that are safe to eat. Or how to fish, and prepare an animal for cooking or preservation.
A heart rending yowl pierces the silence, and Dakala surges to her feet as she looks over in the direction of the sound. Putting the slip back into her ring, she launches herself through the forest towards the screaming animal.
Near a natural pool she finds a large cat with tufted ears and black spots on its dark grey coat. One of it's back legs has been caught in a rusty jaw style trap, that even Dakala knows has been illegal for decades. As she makes her way closer, she can see that the leg itself is bent at an unnatural angle. As she makes her way closer, the cat tries to run away, only to yowl again once it reaches the end of the chain the trap is attached to.
Holding her hands out flat, Dakala approaches the cat, which turns and hisses at her. As she gets closer, the cat lashes out with it's front claws, as it jumps towards her. Dakala deftly moves her hands out of the way and snakes them around to pick up the cat with one hand around its back, and the other under its tail as she steps back along the chain.
As she brings the cat into her chest, her eyes widen, and she says, "You're pregnant."
As the cat claws ineffectually against her clothes, Dakala struggles to remove the trap. Eventually she pushes qi into her arms and wrenches it apart with brute strength. With the trap now gone, the cats broken leg is even more obvious, as it flops around uselessly while the cat tries to escape.
Dakala is oblivious to this, as she places her hand on the cats abdomen, a look of wonder in her eyes as, for a brief moment, she understands. That moment ends as the cat leaves a trail of shallow scratches in the back of her hand in its attempt to escape.
Laughing, Dakala says, "You're not going to survive with that leg, so I guess you're coming with me. I'll hunt you something on the way. I wish I knew how to heal you, but you'll need to make do with a splint until we get home."
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A couple of days later, the Empress meets Dakala and a reluctant passenger at the base of the hill. In her hand she has a woven leather collar with a jade disk threaded into the center of it.
With a smile she looks from the cat up to Dakala, "It looks like you found more than a cat out there."
Dakala nods, "I did, and I think I understand what a Dao is now."
The Empress nods as she fastens the collar around the cats neck, tight enough that it can't remove it, but not so tight as to choke it. "You have taken both the easiest and hardest step of those seeking the Dao. How's your heart?"
A pained expression crosses Dakala's face and she says, "I'd rather not do it again. But I sort of understand now. Did you ever have children of your own?"
The Empress stills for a moment, before nodding slowly, "Not until I reached the heavens, but yes I did. I've had four children with different partners. Not all of them men, and not all of them human. My third child was branded a slave because of her other mother, and the Emperor harvested her blood for centuries before I killed him. I couldn't remove her brand, because it was applied with heavenly authority, so I entrusted her to my first born son and started to climb the heavens until I had the power to remove it."
"What happened to them?"
"They died when more immortals tried to capture her for her blood. Qigang avenged them before she entered the second heaven. Enough about that, I have sticky bbq ribs cooking to welcome you home."
As they start walking up the hill, Dakala asks, "Are there any qi techniques that would have allowed me to heal Snippy's back leg?"
"Snippy?"
Dakala nods, "Yep, because she's always snippy when I give her a kill."
The Empress nods, "There are, however they need a greater level of comprehension of qi than you currently have. There are also exercises for improving your control and understanding of qi manipulation. Mortal knowledge about how the world fits together is also useful, as it reduces the amount of qi you need to use."